HD_MR: a new algorithm for number recognition in electrical meters
Miguel Rodríguez, Geovanni Berdugo, Daladier Jabba, Maria Gabriela Calle, Miguel Jimeno · TURKISH JOURNAL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING & COMPUTER SCIENCES · 2014
Utility companies in developing countries employ analog electrical meters to determine consumption and bill their customers accordingly. Obtaining an accurate reading is an expensive and time-consuming process. High consumption levels of water, energy, or gas are fined by the government; thus, it is necessary to develop tools that allow users to be informed about their consumption in real time. This paper proposes a new number recognition algorithm named the Hausdorff distance for meter reading (HD-MR). Experiments prove that HD-MR can achieve a 99.9% recognition rate, even when recognized numbers are under rotation. The maximum recognition time is 31 ms; hence, the proposed method proves to be effective and capable in real time for the task proposed.